Dammit

[Kristoffer O]

Thanks for bring that back to the foreground. I played my first few games with standard troops and only really got into SCs thanks to Boron suggesting I check out ice devils. Only now do I see how odd it is that they flee when the chaff is killed even if they themselves are untouched. I'd really like a word from the devs on this. Maybe there's a reason why it wouldn't work. In the poll thread Boron said it would make battlemages too powerful, but I don't understand that. They don't usually have very high morale - and even if they did stay on the battlefield, they might well die once all the cannon fodder is gone.

CC

There is nothing that distinguishes a SC from any other commander. Commanders rout when their armies rout. Mages and commanders rarely can stand up to an army by themselves. Therefore commanders follow their routing armies.

SC's are exceptions in that you want them to fight on. The categorization of a SC is highly subjective. Is a Banelord an SC? Is a Banelord with a wraith sword an SC? Is your Wight mage with a wraith sword an SC? The Lamia queen with a wraith sword and an active astral shield might well work as a SC, but you would never want your pretender arch mage with the same equipment to fight on when the enemy army has beaten your troops.

The rout rules allows an exeption to lone commanders. Therefore SC's and pretender monsters can conquer provinces by themselves, but if they follow and lead armies they are subject to the normal routing rules.

There are other reasons as well. Do you want me to elaborate or is this OK for now? (I almost fell in the teacher trap and asked you to come up with two other reasons the rout works as it does )

[Gandalf Parker]

Kristoffer O said:

There is nothing that distinguishes a SC from any other commander. Commanders rout when their armies rout. Mages and commanders rarely can stand up to an army by themselves. Therefore commanders follow their routing armies.

The rout rules allows an exeption to lone commanders. Therefore SC's and pretender monsters can conquer provinces by themselves, but if they follow and lead armies they are subject to the normal routing rules.

So what we have is????
commander with troops
should be done when you want the commander to rout after his troops are gone
commander with no troops
the SC you want to fight on until he is the Last guy standing and takes alot of damage

and then isnt there
commander with guards
not so likely to rout when troops die off but will if guards die off

and of course there is always the random variables in the rolls which make it a chance of happening anyway no matter how the battle is going. It all sounds like a pretty good spread. The only thing left open is some cases where you done get to choose which of the Categorys your commander is in. Such as Moloch with his imps (being discussed in another thread)

[magnate]

Kristoffer O said:

There is nothing that distinguishes a SC from any other commander. Commanders rout when their armies rout. Mages and commanders rarely can stand up to an army by themselves. Therefore commanders follow their routing armies.

SC's are exceptions in that you want them to fight on. The categorization of a SC is highly subjective. Is a Banelord an SC? Is a Banelord with a wraith sword an SC? Is your Wight mage with a wraith sword an SC? The Lamia queen with a wraith sword and an active astral shield might well work as a SC, but you would never want your pretender arch mage with the same equipment to fight on when the enemy army has beaten your troops.

The rout rules allows an exeption to lone commanders. Therefore SC's and pretender monsters can conquer provinces by themselves, but if they follow and lead armies they are subject to the normal routing rules.

There are other reasons as well. Do you want me to elaborate or is this OK for now? (I almost fell in the teacher trap and asked you to come up with two other reasons the rout works as it does <img src="http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif" alt="" /> )

Thanks v much for the response - I'm clear on the current design. First of all, I was never recommending that any special or different rules be applied to SCs, for the very reason that you give - it's impossible to define what's an SC and what isn't.

If I've understood correctly, the main reason for commanders routing when armies rout is that in most cases they'd get slaughtered if they hung around. That's perfectly logical in a normal wargame. But as someone said in another thread (it may even have been Norfleet), this game is about big badass monsters - there's a whole game mechanic (the HoF) dedicated to encouraging their use.

So, if in a decent proportion of cases there is at least one commander who wouldn't get slaughtered just because the troops have routed, and may well go on to win the battle by himself or with mage support, I think it's fair to ask whether the current system is doing what you want for the game? As someone else has said (Sly Frog I think), this mechanic causes players to learn non-obvious tactics to work around it.

What this interesting but very varied discussion is revealing (in between people posting about their favorite games), is that there would be consequences to changing the auto-rout to a morale check. Someone said it would make SCs more powerful by allowing them to take chaff along - well yes I guess so, but that's both intuitive and realistic in a RP sense. Boron said it would make mages more powerful, which I still don't understand. Someone else said it would endanger low-hp pretenders and prophets because they have 30 morale, which I confess I hadn't considered ... but surely the sheer number of hps you have remaining could be factored into morale checks, as well as % lost.

Anyway, thanks again for chipping in - I appreciate that thought was put in to the current system (not for a moment did I think otherwise!), but I'm still not quite convinced that it wouldn't be better (as well as more intuitive) to change it to a morale check. Yes, people would occasionally see their foolhardy low-hp commanders killed by hanging around, but I think if the morale check mechanism is sensitive enough, the difference between 10 and 30 will eliminate most of those cases. Yes, you'd have to be very careful with pretenders and prophets!

I ought to thank you for writing what may well be my favourite game ever, but since I managed to install it at work my life has gone downhill in a big way. I never have time to get anything done any more!

CC